Managing the compliance on commitments for Contract Deliverables is a required part of GovCon program management. The requirements may come from formal Contract Data Requirement Lists (CDRLs) or from stated contract requirements. Staying compliant on these contractual commitments is not fun work, but it is required.
There are different levels of sophistication at which you can manage contract deliverables – from ad hoc to organizational mastery. The needs may vary between programs and different organizations manage this work at different levels. The R3 Program Management solution enables you to manage contract deliverables with varying degrees of automation and sophistication.
In this article, I’ll walk through a continuum of approaches and how the R3 Program Management solution augments your work at each level. The key advantage of using a tool such as ours is that it enables you to more easily move up the stack by automating more of the work at each level.
The Continuum
We’ll break the continuum of approaches into four buckets. Let’s call them Ad Hoc, Document, Manage and Master.
Ad Hoc
This is still a common way of working. At this level, you just do your best to get the deliverables out on time. You do your work manually using a spreadsheet and email. There is no central repository of deliverables, limited visibility and no formal structure.
Document
At this level you are still manually managing the work of tracking what you need to do, creating and getting approvals for deliverables, and delivering the contract deliverable to the customer.
However, after delivery you store the actual deliverable document that you provided to the customer in a secure place and document that it was delivered. This is really a minimum level to assure auditing of your compliance. In our solution, each program has a library for contract deliverables. Items added to the library get visibility in the Program dashboards.
Manage
This level is where you start to establish a more formal way of managing contract deliverables. All of these steps are automated within R3 Program Management.
It starts with defining a list of the contract deliverables for each program/contract. You can then create Action Items in advance to schedule deliverables. When the time comes the system will create a deliverable document using a template if available. It can then kick off a review and approval process as required. When done the deliverable is stored in the system and it is visible to others in the Program dashboards.
This level of managing contract deliverables is the standard best practice. It allows a Program Manager to set up the process and then delegate it to others to drive. The PM can participate and track the results. Thus, it is manageable. It insures that you always have an updated list of deliverables. It automates the work and provides structure. It stores the deliverables and provides visibility.
Master
At this level, you are looking to really master this process. It starts by maintaining a Master List of contract deliverables that your organization may be called upon to do. Each item can have a standard form and/or process for it. This enables you to create standards and workflow automation for different types of contract deliverables.
When you set up a new program/contract you can then select relevant items from the Contract Deliverables Master List. It jump starts your setup. You then add additional contract deliverables to the program list that are unique to the contract.
The process for scheduling and doing the work is the same as at the Manage level. However, with R3 Program Management you also have the ability to automatically publish your contract deliverable to a Customer Portal that is part of the solution. Increasingly, customers are requiring this type of online access to be provided by the vendor.
At the Master level, you truly managing the work of contract deliverables as a process. It helps you focus on the quality of the deliverable instead of the activity.
Its Your Choice
Managing contract defined deliverables is a requirement of GovCon contracting. It is up to you to choose at which level you will manage the work. Leveraging R3’s Program Management solution you have options. It makes it easier for you to move up the continuum by automating more of the work as you get more sophisticated in your approach.
To learn more about contract deliverables, see the R3 Program Management product page.